Search

Ok, you are going to think I’m a dope. Last week as I was preparing to speak on Sunday it suddenly dawned on me that the three messages I had written to prepare all of us to hear “what’s next?” from the Lord for Heartsong were just some new ways of saying what we have been saying for a while now.

The three messages were: “What You See”, “Without A Vision” and “Love Does”. “What You See” was about how we need to take on the way of looking at life, the universe and everything (i.e. reality) the way Jesus does. That turns out to be another way of talking about how we “Get it!”. Adopting as our own the plausibility structure of Jesus is another way of saying downloading Jesus. “Without A Vision” was from the story of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet and telling them to do the same for one another. That story took the place of the Last Supper story for John, and I suggested that might well have been because he recognized holy communion (a union of wholeness with the Lord) as experienced through service. Discovering our places of service in each situation with each one day by day by day is another way of saying embracing our heartsong (“Got it!”). We will serve at the call of the Holy Spirit according to our one in a zillion wiring. We will place our unique never before been and never will be again selves at the disposal of others as the Spirit points us in their direction by opportunity, impulse or arrangement. “Love Does” was about-well-love doing. Love cannot be merely a feeling or thought or plan. Love, Jesus style, is not love unless it eventuates in something done, which is another way of singing our heartsong out loud.

I believe the Lord blinded me to those completely evident recastings of the 3G life because if I had tried to prepare us using those categories you would have been sorely tempted to have yawned me off the stage, and I would have pulled all my hair out trying to find a fresh way to express what we have come to know as the basics of following our Lord into life. Get it, got it, go! Download Jesus, Embrace your heartsong, Sing it out loud (“Go!”).

Those are not one time accomplishments. They are major movements in learning who we are by God and how we are meant to spend our lives. There must be a macro downloading of Jesus as we begin to learn who he is. There must be some initial soul searching as we learn more deeply who we are, and we will need to learn the full sweep of the story of God if we are to find our place in it. There must be the early on application of all that as we try our wings in our sphere of influence, and maybe along the way some macro calling to a specific vocation for how to spend the lion’s share of our time, energy, creativity and resources for Christ’s sake. But beyond the macro movements of the 3G life are the micro applications of it.

Downloading Jesus, embracing your heartsong and singing it out loud are how we are called by our Lord and empowered by him to spend our every day with every one in every situation. And to the extent we do that we are ever ready to hear what the Lord has to say to us next. So bottom line: we get ready to hear the Lord by following him into life according to how he has taught us to do it. We live that way we are ever ready.

Some of you will call me a dope for not understanding at the outset that however someone might think about how to get ready to hear “what’s next” from the Lord it will come down to a steady focus on the 3G life. The rest of you will say, “we already call you a dope.”